Potted film reviews by Gary Anthony Cross

Spy Game (2001)

A veteran CIA agent discovers that his protege is being sold out by the agency so he uses his last 24 hours on the job to try and rescue him from execution by the Chinese government.

Very much an old school spy thriller, Spy Game’s overly generic script means that it’s pretty much entirely reliant on the partnership of Robert Redford and Brad Pitt to maintain your interest. Unfortunately they spend very little time on screen together as Redford spends virtually the entire film sat in a meeting room shuffling paperwork while telling the largely irrelevant back story of how he met Pitt, who seems to be little more than a sharp shooting taxi driver. The result is a combination of a humdrum conspiracy thriller and Jackanory which comes across as the cinematic equivalent of an airport paperback.